Associations between pre-adolescents' cognitive responses to alcohol-related cues, maternal drinking, and direct exposure to alcohol.

The current study investigated pre-adolescent children's (N = 140, M = 10.11 years, SD = 1.48, 59.5% girls) implicit evaluations of and explicit expectancies about alcohol-related cues as a function of their mothers' drinking behaviors and their exposure to alcohol. Children's implicit evaluative responses were measured using the Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP), which consisted of trials that depicted pictures of either alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages, half of which were presented alone (inactive) and half of which were presented with a human interacting with the beverage (active). In addition, children's explicit expectancies, whether they had ever tasted alcohol, and their mothers' alcohol dependency and escape drinking motivations were measured. Results indicated that overall children's implicit evaluations were less positive for alcohol- than for non-alcohol-related cues, and those whose mothers reported higher alcohol dependency evaluated inactive alcohol-related cues more negatively. Moreover, those who had previously tasted alcohol endorsed positive expectancies more than negative expectancies. These findings contribute to our understanding of the processes through which implicit associations are learned in the context of addiction. Understanding cognitive as well as other potential biological and environmental factors that may predict drinking behaviors in youth will aid in the development of more effective evidence-based strategies for the prevention of alcoholism.